Thursday, 30 March 2017

Like good neo-Kantians, we learnt from the cyberneticists that there are no determining forces in the life-world, only conditions of possibility. Whatever appears is not set on its journey by some 'cause' which decides its progress from origin to decay. Everything that is is maintained 'as it is' by the operation of its constraints (that is, the recursive sets of cycling inputs and system leaks which preserve outlines in steady state and dynamic equilibrium.)

The linear model of causation, as this is embraced politically, is a corollary of perfectibility in works. In history, 'progress'; in politics, 'reform'; in evolution, 'ascent'; in consciousness, 'enlightenment'. Such concepts retrieve themselves from available resources, and emerge over and over within patterns that tend to replicate ideals of 'the incremental', 'the improvable', and 'the hygienic'.

Marxism's causal account of history, modelling itself on Darwinism, is that of the self-cleansing form. As a structure emerges within history, it throws off the muck of ages, and becomes cleaner. The more hygienic the form, the greater its capacity for self-forming separation. The promethean narrative of causation is directed towards its escape from causation, and this is only conceivable within the framework of incrementalism, improvability and sanitation as assertion of the self-causing form. The proletariat as subject and object knows to wipe its feet on the threshold of history.

Nihilist communism does not adhere to the model of linear causation. It perceives that every member of the set will 'get up with fleas'. The totalised, net-form, relations that constitute the life-world ensure that all members equally express its relations. No individual, group or class escapes its containment by the life-world. No individual, group or class is sufficiently hygienic that it may look in from outside. No individual, group or class may speak or act against its world in complete confidence that it is not also replicating the values of that world at another velocity.

At this point, there is some recourse to some conception of 'crisis theory' within nihilist communism. If class war is the dynamic force of capitalist relations, and every engagement renews those relations, then 'collapse' rather than strategy would appear to constitute the most likely form of release. It follows that, any potential collapse of a net-form set of relations would depend upon the corruption or depletion of an essential component or resource.

The most unstable factor of production is 'labour'. Not only does labour have 'objective and 'subjective' features, it is component, raw material and end product of the productive apparatus (that is, it appears as several inputs at once). Even so, labour in revolt remains capable only of replicating 'labour' and 'production for need' as the basis of its counter-lifeworld. Nihilist communism proposed that as a factor of the capitalist relation in crisis 'there will be workers' councils'. And yet, the function of 'workers' councils' defines the concept of crisis management - historically, soviets have succeeded only in maintaining the production of use-values during crisis. When the economy is refinanced and passes out of spasm, the workers' councils fade away in the glare of business as usual.

For reason of the homing instinct in revolutionaries, as they seek unprecendented rationalisations for returning to familiar forms (the revolutionary secret police; the revolutionary state bureaucrats; the revolutionary managers of production), a revolt against the form of the revolution becomes the necessary condition of escape. If the first phase of social revolution is the seizure of the produced world by one of its essential components, then the second phase involves not permitting that component its return to familiar conditions.

Nihilist communism conjectures that the first phase of revolution, if it is implemented by labour, will involve a relatively small number of workers (what it calls, 'the essential proletariat'). As production passes therapeutically into an induced coma, the second phase must then be commenced - this will be undertaken 'consciously' on a 'species' scale (perhaps the only moment in all of history where consciousness, or its absence, will prove decisive one way or the other). The 'species' revolt will be directed against the possibility of a return to production as life-world. The first phase of revolt is conditioned environmentally by productive relations and realises the ideal form of production. The second phase is 'over-conditioned' by multiple crisis forms and thereby wins at least the possibility of selecting its environmental conditions - that is to say, it wins the chance to become its environment.

No revolutionary subject. No veto on containment. All forms equally express their conditions.

Wednesday, 29 March 2017

Communism now appears precisely as the practical and imperative refusal of every communist proposal: Not the party (neither formal nor historic); Not the class itself; Not historical materiality; Not the real movement; Not the dialectic; Not voluntarist measures taken; Not determinism; Not what is to be done; Not fully automated luxury communism; Not solidarity; Not class struggle; Not dictatorship of the proletariat; Not transitional stages; Not one no many yeses; Not value critique; Not autonomy; Not accelerating the means of production; Not communising measures; Not primitivism; Not human community; Not the network; Not the reading group; Not the brotherhood or secret society; Above all, not marxism.

Communism is not a fetish. And nor is it a preference, belief or set of principles. Communism is not an expression of the 'workers' movement' but merely its representation. Communism cannot be established or maintained through conscious activity. Just as systems of education produce various unintended consequences (from outright illiteracy to the truncated gestures of instrumentalised existence) so the designed society inevitably degenerates into the disciplinary archipelago. It is a principle of marxism that form determines content... sobeit! However, 'form' is not reducible either to institutionalised relations, nor to technical (that is reformable) structures. Human beings are also formally perverse; they are wretched; they are vile; they are aggressive; they are competitive; they are hostile (to themselves and everything else). No other animal requires communism to restrain it from annihilating its life-world. Then, for reason of the form of human perversity, which is the eternal spring of consciousness and therefore of revolt, it is futile to assume the emancipatory possibility of a structural agreement between populations (that is, contents) and institutions (that is, forms). Contrariwise! Populations (that is, forms) exist in a perpetual tumult in relation to institutions (that is, contents). 'Communist' populations will, and must, exist in a state of tension with the institutions of 'communism'. Every populace seeks to exceed and by-pass the rules of established relations, flowing round not through institutions. So, the tradition of communism, as a 'moving' set of 'communist' values is too narrow to contain the full history of human society. The perversity, the prejudice, the violence, the non-compliance, the inherent wretchedness of human beings must be 'built in' to communist relations, and realised or 'owned' and not simply denied or suppressed. Resilient social relations do not demand conform ist behaviours. Contrariwise! The function and goal of resilient social relations is to generate structural non-commensurability, even contradictions, both vertically and horizontally within populations. The length and the breadth of human history, and even the scale of its pre-history, must return as both form and content, as non-linear, self-interrupting, relations. Or your money back.

Even the most terrible moments of the past shall be acknowledged and incorportated. But the return of the repressed and the disavowed (the process of permissive de-sublimation) may not occur on its own terms. What comes back does not come back as an expression of its original conditions but as 'communist' relations burning the brown fat of possibility that it laid down before hibernation. The tigers of the past leap into the clearing of the present with paper teeth and claws, the kraken wakes as a sigh, the plague as a sneeze. In short, the hard programmed set of permissions that structure resiliance as a set of relations will reverse the determinations expressed in Blake's Ghost of a flea: vengeful spirits are made to appear as avatars for the mundane.

For thousands more years the mighty ships tore across the emp ty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across—which happened to be the Earth—where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.HHGTTG

Saturday, 25 March 2017

Nihilist: in lurches and flashes I recognise both my disconnection from, and integration within, social production. I am in no position to contribute to, participate in, or take control over the processes that form me. I am in no position to prevent, slow down, or halt the environment that constrains and uses me. I am a character, not an actor. Sometimes, as in a dream, I become aware that my presence, my behaviour, my words are written and directed from elsewhere. Sometimes, I become sufficiently aware of the field of my determinations and I make inky scratches upon myself as a reminder of my vanities. The condition of my defeat, which is also a mode of minimal preservation, and which I permanently inhabit, appears as a frozen act of self-interruption, or a prolonged stay of execution. I am stopped here, at some border and I will not cross it. Nor will I turn back. I seem to have been waiting for a very long time for the world to close over me.

Communism: Not a belief; not a commitment; not a discipline. Only a reference to what caused me to arrive at this point a decade and a half ago. My source material is the unravelling contradictions expressed by the ultra-left in the decades from the 1950's to the 1990's. These contradictions continue to frame the self-conditioning, or subjective, component of my awareness. Communism now appears precisely as the practical and imperative refusal of every communist proposal: Not the party (neither formal nor historic); Not the class itself; Not historical materiality; Not the real movement; Not the dialectic; Not voluntarist measures taken; Not determinism; Not what is to be done; Not fully automated luxury communism; Not solidarity; Not class struggle; Not dictatorship of the proletariat; Not transitional stages; Not one no many yeses; Not value critique; Not autonomy; Not accelerating the means of production; Not communising measures; Not primitivism; Not human community; Not the network; Not the reading group; Not the brotherhood or secret society; Above all, not marxism.